Gymnastics officials want Hamm to give up gold

Gymnastics officials want Hamm to give up gold
This is sooo infuriating. FIG asks Hamm to give the medal back, but does not order him to do so; they say it "would be recognized as the ultimate demonstration of fair play by the whole world.". I respect USOC for refusing to give the FIG letter by saying it is "a blatant and inappropriate attempt on the part of (FIG) to once again shift responsibility for its own mistakes and instead pressure Mr. Hamm into resolving what has become an embarrassing situation for your federation."

I wish the sports writers got it right... The article says: "Yang, the bronze medalist, was wrongly docked a tenth of a point on his parallel bars routine. If he had received the proper score, he would have won gold and Hamm would have won silver." Had Yang received a proper score, it would have been 0.1 lower because of the 4 holds deduction; this means he would have been 4th instead of 3d.

I agree with you Ptichka. It is about time the US federation stood up for Paul. Life isn't "fair." And even the international fed's solution (Paul volunteering his medal) isn't fair. At least the Olympics people are standing by the original medal awarded.

So many other athletes could and did cry foul. But the class ones accepted whatever happened. My example being the US hurtler who was favored to win falling and being eliminated. What a first class guy. No wonder he is the team captain. He took it all in stride. Admitted he was really disappointed but said, that is the way things go, and will be the loudest cheerleader for his teammates

I am so furious about this whole thing! I hate that some reporters are excluding the fact that the 0.2 deduction for 4 holds was NEVER taken. Utterly absurd that the FIG is asking this of Paul. Cowardly too. I am glad the USOC is refusing this. Hasn't the IOC also stated that this case is closed.

Did you guys see the piece last night on Paul? I wish they had shown this around 8:30pm rather than 11:30pm, but they brought closure to this issue and highlighted what Paul had accomplished. Then they brought out J. Rogge and he basically said this case was shut. He said in sports there is human error (very different than what happened in SLC) and everyone needs to accept that. He pointed out that if there was a bad call by an official in a soccer game are you going to have them replay the match the next day?

If you want to open a REALLY big can of worms, how about the guy who finished 4th in the Men's AA--had Yangs routine been scored correctly would he have finished 3rd or 4th?

One more thing (while I am still heated up over this), has the S. Korean Federation EVEN filed a protest yet? The other day the papers were saying that this was yet to be done!

I watched Paul on D. Letterman show the other night and I can't tell you how nice it was to see him smile! Letterman was extrememely supportive as was the audience.

Hey, I have no problem with protests. If anything, I think US rhythmnic gymnastics officials are correct to file protest over individual qualifications standings -- not because they have a point (I have no idea if they do), but because the federation should work in its athletes' best interests. I also understand that the media only cares about the rankings. However, the sports officials should be above this. They should be able to say "this is right" or "this is wrong", instead of proposing this Disneyfied version of Hamm giving his medal to Yang. BTW, is Kim then supposed to give his medal to Hamm?

I am so furious about this whole thing! I hate that some reporters are excluding the fact that the 0.2 deduction for 4 holds was NEVER taken.

Note: I am NO gymnastics expert - I just quote what others explained.

This deduction is NOT obligatory. Plus it is only worth a deduction (if at all) if the hold was longer than 2 seconds which nobody yet confirmed that Yang did four of those holds (longer than 2 seconds).

And then - if anybody debates deductions within a certain routine (the 0.1 difference between 9.9 and 10.0 is about the base mark and was admitted to be an error of the judges, not a wrong mark), the judges would have to judge again ALL of the routines. And this might have different results than you expect, perhaps that would make you even more furious? Better to calm down and watch things from different perspectives.

One of those judges they suspended coaches in the Cleveland area. His employer and friend points out that he studied and practiced judging because his dream was to be an Olympic judge. He did this inspite of missing work (and pay) and footing the costs himself. The judges are like the ones in figure skating,.

Maybe the result of this will be a movement for judges to be paid employees of the international federation? Yeah, right away. Just like in figure skating!

Well, all I can say is....BOOOOOO! What a load of steaming crap. I can't believe FIG has decided to leave it up to others to fix THEIR mistakes. I hope Paul doesn't bow to this cowardly request made by FIG. He and the Korean athlete did nothing wrong. The gymnastics officials peed in their own cheerios on this one...I think they should be responsible for cleaning up the mess. And, asking Paul to give his medal back is not cleaning up the mess. It is creating a new one.

BTW, is Kim then supposed to give his medal to Hamm?

Exactly. How in the world will that work? Will we get a double silver now? Ridiculous.

Didn't Rogge make a comment to Costas that there will be no change in the medals in Men's all-around gymnastics?

Joe

ASFAIK, the IOC insists it's up to FIG's ruling. This time Rogge diddn't put any pressure on FIG (unlike SLC he threaten to remove ice dancing from Olympics), IMO, because he dosn't feel the tremondouse pressure from the media. And I believe NA audiances has more market value to IOC than Korean.

I am so tired of this "Yeah, we screwed up, but it's up to Hamm to make it right" attitude by the officials. If it's up to the GYMNASTS to make everything right, why don't they let the GYMNASTS judge the competition and score each other to begin with?? They'd probably do a much better job than the group of bumbling idiots they picked to officiate in Athens.